“Why, then, anything you like yourself, sir,” said Pembroke.

“Your little slipper against fifty pounds?” asked John Law.

“Why—­yes—­,” hesitated Pembroke, for the moment feeling a doubt of the luck that had favored him so long that evening.  “I’d rather make it sovereigns, but since you name the slipper, I even make it so, for I know there is but one chance in hundreds that you win.”

The players leaned over the table as the deal went on.  Once, twice, thrice, the cards went round.  A sigh, a groan, a long breath broke from those who looked at the deal.  Neither groan nor sigh came from John Law.  He gazed indifferently at the heap of coin and paper that lay on the table, and which, by the law of play, was now his own.

“Trente et le va,” he said.  “I knew that it would come.  Sir Arthur, I half regret to rob thee thus, but I shall ask my slipper in hand paid.  Pardon me, too, if I chide thee for risking it in play.  Gentlemen, there is much in this little shoe, empty as it is.”

He dandled it upon his finger, hardly looking at the winnings that lay before him. “’Tis monstrous pretty, this little shoe,” he said, rousing himself from his half reverie.

“Confound thee, man!” cried Castleton, “that is the only thing we grudge.  Of sovereigns there are plenty at the coinage—­but of a shoe like this, there is not the equal this day in England!”

“So?” laughed Law.  “Well, consider, ’tis none too easy to make the run of trente.  Risk hath its gains, you know, by all the original laws of earth and nature.”

“But heard you not the wager which was proposed over the little shoe?” broke in Castleton.  “Wilson, here, was angered when I laid him odds that there was but one woman in London could wear this shoe.  I offered him odds that his good friend, Kittie Lawrence—­”

“Nor had ye the right to offer such bet!” cried Wilson, ruffled by the doings of the evening.

“I’ll lay you myself there’s no woman in England whom you know with foot small enough to wear it,” cried Castleton.

“Meaning to me?” asked Law, politely.

“To any one,” cried Castleton, quickly, “but most to thee, I fancy, since ’tis now thy shoe!”

“I’ll lay you forty crowns, then, that I know a smaller foot than that of Madam Lawrence,” said Law, suavely.  “I’ll lay you another forty crowns that I’ll try it on for the test, though I first saw the lady this very morning.  I’ll lay you another forty crowns that Madam Lawrence can not wear this shoe, though her I have never seen.”

These words rankled, though they were said offhand and with the license of coffee-house talk at so late an hour.  Beau Wilson rose, in a somewhat unsteady attitude, and, turning towards Law, addressed him with a tone which left small option as to its meaning.

“Sirrah!” cried he, “I know not who you are, but I would have a word or two of good advice for you!”